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Announcing OpenSprinkler Pre-Release v2.0s (assembled version)

Jun 17th, 2013 by ray

After a few weeks of shipping these ‘underground’, I am finally happy to spread the words around: the OpenSprinkler Pre-Release v2.0s is officially available for sale! Note that this is the SMT assembled version — we don’t have DIY 2.0 yet. As usual, the first question to ask is what’s new in this version?

Upgraded MCU: OpenSprinkler 2.0 uses ATmega644, which is twice as much as ATmega328 in all aspects (i.e. flash memory size, GPIO pins, RAM, EEPROM, perhaps price as well 🙂 ). This makes it possible to add new features that I have planned ahead (e.g. weather-based control, logging, interfacing with wireless devices etc.) We will no longer be constrained by the flash memory size, well, at least for a while.
Upgraded Switching Regulator: the switching regulator (for 24VAC->5VDC conversion) has been upgraded from MC34063 to LM2596, which is less noisy and capable of outputting higher current. As more users are powering WiFi adapters through OpenSprinkler’s USB port, it’s important to make the power conversion section robust. The same circuitry is now also used in OpenSprinkler Pi. Details about this change can be found in this blog post.
Added microSD Card Slot: microSD card is useful for expanding the storage size of a microcontroller. This s great for a lot of purposes, such as logging, storing a lot of sprinkler programs, Javascript files etc. A standard microSD card shares the SPI interface and requires only one extra GPIO pin to operate. Hence adding microSD card support is a no brainer!
Expansion Board Detection: this allows the main controller to automatically detect the number of zone expansion boards linked to the controller. Not so crucial, but neat. The implementation is actually quite simple: it uses a pull-up resistor on the main controller and one pull-down resistor on each expansion board to form a voltage divider. By checking the voltage using an analog pin, the mcu can easily calculate how many boards are linked.
Other Features: given the plentiful GPIO pins available on ATmega644, I’ve added support to adjust LCD contrast and backlight (using two PWM pins), a set of pin headers for plugging in an off-the-shelf RF transmitter (for interfacing with wireless devices). The other un-used pins are made available in the pinout area (including three analog pins, two interrupt pins, two digital pins, as well as TXD, RXD, SDA and SCL).

OK, that’s quite a detailed list of new features. Here is an annotated diagram of the actual hardware:

Also, just for fun, a diagram that shows each module of the circuit and where they are located on the PCB:

The reason I call this the Pre-Release 2.0 is that the official 2.0 will use the injection molded enclosures I blogged about in this post. While that is already in production at SeeedStudio, I can’t give a reliable estimate of how long it will take for the final products to arrive. There have already been multiple delays, so I won’t be surprised if there are more… Other than the difference in the enclosure design, the pre-release 2.0 hardware is the same as the final 2.0.

If you are wondering what I mean by ‘shipping these underground’ at the beginning of the post — we’ve been automatically upgrading the recent orders of assembled OpenSprinkler v1.4s to v2.0s. Why not make it public? Well, there are several reasons. The first is that due to the Maker Faire and the vacation after that, I haven’t had time to finish the documentations, and I’m reluctant to officially release a product when the documentations are not ready yet. Second, I’ve been experimenting with minor changes of the 2.0 design, and we’ve been shipping several small batches, each with slight different hardware design. This is an important process to get user feedback, and to iron out all engineering issues before the official release. Finally, as many users have been waiting for 2.0, I don’t want to suddenly get into an overload situation, where the number of orders exceed our capacity to process them.

In terms of software, OpenSprinkler 2.0 is currently flashed with firmware 2.0.0, which is functionally the same as firmware 1.8.3, except for the additional options such as LCD contrast and backlight, and the support for a higher number of expansion boards and programs. More exciting firmware features will be gradually added over time. Also, starting from firmware 2.0.0, the source code can be compiled in Arduino 1.x (latest stable version is 1.0.5), and this is also the recommended Arduino version to compile OpenSprinkler code. I will continue to provide a VirtualBox image which has everything needed for compilation set up and ready to go.

The final bit of news: if you are interested in DIY 2.0, unfortunately that won’t be available for at least a couple of months. The delay is partly because the new injection molded enclosures are not ready yet (there is no space in the current enclosure to fit all through-hole components), and partly because there are a few design decisions I haven’t ironed out yet. So at least for a couple of months we will keep offering DIY 1.42u for anyone who wants to build OpenSprinkler from scratch.

So much for the announcement of OpenSprinkler Pre-Release 2.0. Feel free to leave your comments and suggestions below, or at the Rayshobby Forum. Thanks!

Posted in Arduino, Product News, Sprinkler Projects | Comments Off

A Mobile Web App for OpenSprinkler and OpenSprinkler Pi

Jun 17th, 2013 by ray

Update: OpenSprinkler new mobile app (native version) is now available on all platforms. Search ‘opensprinkler’ in iOS App Store, Android Play Store, or Windows Phone Store, then download and install the app. Additional details can be found in this blog post.

I am very excited to announce that a mobile web app for OpenSprinkler and OpenSprinkler Pi is now available, thanks to the generous contributions by Samer Albahra. After playing with the app for a while, I am quite pleased with the polished user interface. The only thing I want to say is it’s absolutely amazing! I would highly recommend those who are interested in a mobile app to give it a try. This blog post is a brief introduction to the app. For details, please refer to Samer’s write-up:

Before I begin, let me summarize some of the highlights of this development:

Cross-platform: the same web app runs on iOS, Android, as well as Desktop browsers. Also, the app is self-contained and does not rely on external Javascripts (so you can use it to access OpenSprinkler without Internet connection).
Supports the complete set of features in OpenSprinkler firmware 1.8.3 (and equivalently 2.0.0 for v2.0 hardware). Supports both OpenSprinkler and OpenSprinkler Pi (running the interval_program ported by Dan).
Supports additional features including logging and days selection in program preview.

The main requirement to enable this web app is an HTTP server with PHP support. You can either use a desktop server, or a Raspberry Pi (instructions given below), or an external server. For OpenSprinkler Pi users: the same RPi that drives your OSPi can be used as the HTTP server, so no additional RPi needed!

What’s a Mobile Web App?

Since the beginning of OpenSprinkler, requests for an iPhone or Android app have never stopped. To be frank, I have never written a mobile app myself. When writing the firmware for OpenSprinkler, I did consider a few tricks to make the webpage look a little nicer on a mobile browser, but the interface is still evidently written by an engineer, namely me 🙂 So far there have been a couple of efforts, mostly by OpenSprinkler users, to write iPhone apps (which I will blog about later). I am not aware of any effort to write Android apps.

So what’s a mobile web app? Simply speaking, it’s a webpage which appears like an app. Mobile webpages are not a new thing: when you use your phone or any mobile device to browse webpages, such as a bank’s homepage, the server will automatically detect what kind of device you are using, and return a page that’s optimized for mobile browsing experience. For example, the pages may have fewer elements than the desktop version, and buttons may appear larger, etc.

With the emergence of HTML5, mobile webpages are becoming fancier and more dynamic. Almost any feature you can find in a standard iPhone or Android app can be implemented in a web app. Speaking of that, the main difference of a standard app with a mobile web app is that the former is a native application that runs on an iOS or Android device, while the latter is a webpage that runs in a browser. This brings the biggest benefit of a web app, namely it’s cross-platform — you write one app and it instantly runs on almost any device, thanks to the universal support of HTML5 on modern browsers. No more learning how to write an iPhone app, no more messing with the Apple store. Everything is unified 🙂

Of course there are certain things you can’t do with a web app vs. a native app, such as accessing hardware (e.g. cameras, bluetooth etc.) Actually even these I am not entirely sure if they are absolutely impossible. For example, I’ve heard about accessing phone cameras in HTML5. I need to do some more research on these. The other downside is that a web app is slower than a native app, but there are lots of applications where the speed is not critical. In any case, one can argue that in the future web apps can replace most native apps, and this will be a big win for developers as they don’t have to maintain multiple implementations of the same app.

The OpenSprinkler Mobile Web App

Now let me go back to talk about the OpenSprinkler mobile web app that Samer wrote. Here are a few screenshots from his blog:

Very sleek and clean. Gotta love it! The app currently supports the complete set of features in OpenSprinkler firmware 1.8.3 (and equivalently 2.0.0 for OpenSprinkler v2.0s users). You do probably need to refer to the OpenSprinkler Online User Manual for detailed explanations of specific settings, but the app itself is quite intuitive to use and self-explanatory.

Not only does it support the complete set of firmware features, it offers additional ones, notably:

A logging feature (i.e. records of watering events).
The ability to select an arbitrary day in program preview.
The app is self-contained (implemented using PHP) and does not rely on external Javascripts, so you can use it to access OpenSprinkler locally without Internet connection.

These really help improve the user interface significantly. Also, as mentioned before, the app is cross-platform: the same app runs on iOS, Android, as well as Desktop browsers.

How to Set it Up (using Raspberry Pi as example)

To set up the web app, you need to have an HTTP server with PHP support. There are many options, for example, a desktop server running Ubuntu Linux, a Raspberry Pi, or an external server. In the following I will use Raspberry Pi (RPi) as an example since it can be used as a low-cost web server. The steps should be the same for desktop servers. For details, please refer to Samer’s GitHub repository (link given above). In addition, you will need an OpenSprinkler running firmware 1.8.3 or above, or OpenSprinkler Pi running the interval_program ported by Dan.

Step 1. Install the necessary packages

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install apache2 php5 libapache2-mod-php5 git

Step 2. Create direcotry

sudo mkdir -m 777 /var/www/sprinklers

Step 3. Clone Samer’s GitHub repository

sudo git clone https://github.com/salbahra/OpenSprinkler-Controller.git /var/www/sprinklers/

This will download and copy necessary files to the /var/www/sprinklers/ directory. Once these steps are completed, you can open a web browser (either desktop browser or mobile browser), and type in the IP address of your RPi, followed by /sprinklers. For example, my RPi’s IP address is 192.168.1.147, so I type in:

http://192.168.1.147/sprinklers/

You should then see a setup page that requires you to type in some necessary information. In particular,

An account including user name and password.
Your OpenSprinkler’s IP address (including port number if it’s not the default 80).
Your OpenSprinkler’s access password (‘opendoor’ by default).
Un-check the ‘Force SSL’ checkbox, unless if you are sure you server has the proper SSL setup.

Once your settings are saved, you will be automatically directed to a login page (or if not, you can directly type in the web url again: http://192.168.1.147/sprinklers/). Type in the account you created above, and then you should be directed to the app’s homepage. I recommend you to bookmark this page to your home screen (most mobile browsers support this), so that next time you can simply click on the home screen icon to access the web app. From this point on, you can feel free to play with the app, and check all the features it supports. I will probably make a video demo at some point to give you a visual walk-through of the app.

In case your settings are changed, you can open /var/www/sprinklers/config.php to change the information there accordingly. Since this is a un-encrypted text file, you probably want to restrict its access right for security reasons (e.g. sudo chmod o-r /var/www/sprinklers/config.php)

For OpenSprinkler Pi Users

If you are an OpenSprinkler Pi user, you don’t need to install any additional RPi or HTTP server: the same RPi that drives your OSPi can be used to serve the web app! Just follow the instructions above to install apache2, php5 and the other goodies. Your Python-based interval_program can run in conjunction with the HTTP server in the background.

At some point it will make sense to combine the Python-based program and PHP-based web app into a single program that serves both the front-end (UI) and back-end (scheduling algorithms). This would be awesome for the OpenSprinkler Pi in the future.

Acknowledgement

Finally, a big thank-you again to Samer Albahra, who wrote this app and made it available to the public. This is yet another evidence of the spirit of open-source development.

Keep in mind that the web app is continuously being improved and supported, and we can use your feedback and suggestions for making it better and fixing bugs. Please leave your comments and suggestions at the Rayshobby Forum. Thanks!

Posted in Apps, Product News, Sprinkler Projects | Comments Off

OpenSprinkler Interval Program is now available for OSPi

Jun 8th, 2013 by ray

Good news to the OpenSprinkler Pi users: the same interval program firmware that runs on the latest OpenSprinkler has now been ported to OpenSprinkler Pi! This is due entirely to the generous contributions by Dan Kimberling, who ported the OpenSprinkler’s Arduino code to Python. The code is available for download at Dan’s GitHub repository. Instructions can be found at the Rayshobby Wiki page:

Python Interval Program for OSPi

(Note: the grayed-out instructions below are obsolete and are only kept here for archiving purpose. Please follow the instructions on the Wiki page above for how to install and use the latest software. Thanks.)

For anyone who is unfamiliar with RPi, here are some basic instructions to follow:

First, ssh to your RPi (or connect your RPi to a monitor and open a Terminal), and type in run the following command in one single line(i.e. the ‘wget’ command, space, and the very long link): wget https://github.com/rayshobby/opensprinkler/raw/master/OpenSprinkler%20Pi/software/demos/interval_program/ospi.tar.gz
Next, run tar zvxf ospi.tar.gz. This will unzip the file to a subfolder named OSPi in your current directory.
Now, cd OSPi, and then run sudo python ospi.py (note that you will need to type in your RPi account password). This will start the web server.
Open a browser on your computer or any device that’s connected to the same network as your RPi, and type in your RPi’s IP address, followed by colon, and the default port number 8080. For example, for my RPi, the address is http://192.168.1.147:8080. You should now see the homepage of the interval program demo. Note that the port number can be changed to other values, in which case you need to check the source files to figure out how to make the change (or post a message on the forum and I am sure someone will help you).

This demo program is the same as OpenSprinkler 1.8.2 firmware. So you can follow the OpenSprinkler Online User Manual for usage instructions. I believe all features of the firmware are supported. Keep in mind that this is still work in progress, so there are glitches and bugs that will be ironed out over time. If you are a developer, you are welcome to improve the code or help fixing bugs. The backbone of the software is based on web.py, a popular and easy-to-use web framework for Python.

Also keep in mind that if you have RPi rev. 2 (which is the current model), you need to open ospi.py and edit a port number. Details can be found in the README.txt file. P.S., it’s generally a good idea to read the README.txt first before you start doing anything.

These will be the basics to get you started. If you have any questions, feel free to post a message on the forum.

Finally, a big thank-you again to Dan Kimberling for his time and efforts in making this available to the public. This is an example of the true spirit of open-source development and community support. I am very excited to see additional user contributions to the OpenSprinkler Pi project!

Posted in Product News, Raspi, Sprinkler Projects | Comments Off

Preparing for Bay Area Maker Faire 2013

May 17th, 2013 by ray

Contrary to what I mentioned in a previous post, I have made the very last-minute decision to attend the Bay Area Maker Faire 2013. I will be flying out of Massachusetts early tomorrow morning, and get to the Maker Faire ground in the afternoon to do initial setup. Aaron Newcomb has kindly volunteered to help me at the booth. If you are planning to come to the Maker Faire, be sure to drop by our booth (exhibit 3375, Expo Hall with commercial makers), and watch our demos.

We will be showing most products I’ve developed so far: OpenSprinkler (including DIY 1.42u, the new assembled OpenSprinkler 2.0, and new injection molded enclosure), OpenSprinkler Pi, SquareWear (with lots of pictures of wearable electronics workshops I’ve hosted int he past, and SquareWear demos), AASaver (including the upcoming AASaver 2.0 I just blogged about earlier tonight). So it will be quite a show!

It has been fun to prepare the demos, and a lot of work too. Below are my sketches for two of the OpenSprinkler demos:

and some real gears to go with the two demos:

In terms of promotional materials, new this year I have made a banner and some business cards to be distributed at the table:

These were made in the last minute, so they are not as professionally looking as I wanted, but the essential information is there 🙂 Also, I will have lots of colorful info pages and pictures at the table.

Time to go to sleep and prepare for the trip tomorrow. Hope to see you at the Maker Faire OpenSprinkler booth!

Posted in Arduino, Maker Faire, Sprinkler Projects | Comments Off

A VirtualBox Image for Compiling OpenSprinkler Source Code

May 11th, 2013 by ray

I know, it has been a pain to compile OpenSprinkler 1.x source code, mainly because the firmware has grown to the point that you can only compile it successfully (i.e. within 32KB size) under a particular version of avr-gcc (4.5.3) in a particular version of Linux. This is very annoying for users who want to modify the source code and experiment with new features. That’s why I have decided to create a VirtualBox image with all the necessary software and settings that you need to easily compile it, without having to install a separate Linux system yourself.

Before you continue reading, please note that the VirtualBox Image is only useful if you are trying to modify the compile the source code yourself. To upload a pre-compiled firmware, you do not need any of these.

Wait, What?
VirtualBox is a free software that you can use to install and run a virtual operating system (OS) on your existing OS. Let’s say your computer runs Windows (i.e. the host OS). With VirtualBox, you can run a virtual OS (e.g. Linux) under the host OS, as if it is a Windows application but it’s a fully functional Linux system. This makes it easy to switch between different OS without having to restart your computer. VirtualBox is quite mature now. It makes use of hardware virtualization features available on most modern CPUs to provide fast speed. So even though you are running a virtual OS, it feels just as fast as a native OS.

One of the benefits of virtual OS is that the entire OS and all settings are stored in a single file — the VirtualBox Image — on your host system. So you can easily replicate the same virtual OS on different hosts by a simple copy-paste of the image file.

Download
To make it easy to compile OpenSprinkler code, I created a VirtualBox Image for Linux Mint 13 with all the necessary software installed. You can download the virtual image file from here:

Linux Mint 13 VirtualBox Image (updated Jun 20, 2013, adding OpenSprinkler 2.0 code)

Warning: the file size is 2.1GB, so it will take some time to download. Meanwhile, you can read the instructions below.
User and Password: the virtual OS has a default sudo user opensprinkler and the password is the same as the user name.
VMWare Users: check this forum post for instructions of converting VirtualBox image to VMWare image.
Unzip in Windows: do not use the built-in zip/unzip tool of Windows because it seems unable to recognize the correct file size. Use a third-party software such as 7-Zip or WinRAR.

Instructions
Step 1. Install VirtualBox

Download and install the latest version of VirtualBox from its official website. You should install the version corresponding to your host OS (Windows, Mac etc.). In the following I will use Windows as an example. After installing the software, you also need to install the VirtualBox Extension Pack. This is platform independent.

Step 2. Add a New Virtual OS
Unzip the file you downloaded to a local folder. I recommend creating a folder named VirtualBox VMs in your home directory, and unzip everything there. Next, run VirtualBox you just installed, and click on menu Machine -> Add. Navigate to the folder VirtualBox VMs \ LinuxMint13 and select the LinuxMint13.vbox file. Then click on Open to add the file. Now you should see an item named LinuxMint13 in the virtual OS list.

Click on Settings and make sure the default settings are compatible with your system. In particular, you should check if the Base Memory allocated to your virtual OS is not too large (it defaults to 2GB but depending on how much physical memory you have you may need to reduce it to 1GB).

Now you can click on Start to start the virtual OS. There will be a bunch of dialog boxes popping up with various information. If this is the first time you are using VirtualBox, you should read them thoroughly. Once the virtual OS boots up, you should see the desktop as shown in the following. If you want, you can press Ctrl-F to quit full screen mode, so the virtual OS will look like a normal Windows application running alongside with other applications.

Step 3. Compile OpenSprinkler Code
Arduino 0023 is pre-installed in the virtual OS. So you can just double click on the desktop icon to run it. Also, firmware 1.8.3 source code is pre-installed. So all you need to do to get started is to go to menu File -> Examples -> OpenSprinkler -> interval_program and then you can compile the code directly. If you need to change and file, or update to new firmware source code, everything is located in the arduino-0023/libraries/OpenSprinkler folder on the desktop.

Note: the following two steps are revelent:

Specify your hardware version by opening file arduino-0023/libraries/OpenSprinkler/defines.h, and uncomment one of the lines #define SVC_HW_VERSION that corresponds to your hardware version. To identify your hardware version, check the version number printed at the top of your OpenSprinkler circuit board. The current version is 1.4.
If you own OpenSprinkler v1.0 or 1.1, you can no longer upload a program through FTDI. Instead, you need an external ISP programmer. An inexpensive USBtiny programmer is available at Rayshobby Shop.

Step 4. Upload Compiled Code
To upload the compiled code to your OpenSprinkler controller, first connect OpenSprinkler to your computer through the USB port. Then go to the VirtualBox software, and click (in the menu) Devices -> USB Devices -> USBtinySPI. This will allow the OpenSprinkler’s built-in USBtiny programmer to pass through directly to the virtual Linux and appear as a native device. Finally, click on the Upload button in Arduino and you are all set.

That’s all. Hope my effort is helpful for those who want to compile OpenSprinkler source code. Feel free to leave comments, and enjoy playing with the virtual Linux!

Posted in Arduino, Sprinkler Projects | Comments Off

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